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There’s no doubt about it – Twitter is a phenomenon. It has absolutely taken the social networking world by storm and is currently the fastest growing social platform with a massive increase in visitors every single day. However the world is split between those that ‘get it’ and those that really don’t have a clue and wonder what all the fuss is about.

Usually, those that don’t understand what it is and what it does usually come up with some excuse about it being a complete waste of time and totally pointless. I’m being unfair – it’s not an excuse, it’s a very valid reaction to something that they don’t understand yet everyone else appears to think is a big as the second coming.

But what is it and why is it taking the world by storm?

Well, Twitter explains the concept quite well themselves – it’s simply ‘micro-blogging’ or a platform by which you can type a really small message (140 characters – yes, less than SMS!) and this gets sent out to all your ‘followers’ (the people that are watching what you say). That’s it.

So, a bunch of people have expressed an interest in the information I put out on Twitter every day. Essentially, my 140 character nuggets of wisdom are important enough for them to want to read them and so they ‘follow’ me. Every time I utter something, they read it.

That’s it.

It works in reverse too. I follow them, they say something, I see it in my ‘stream’ and if I like it, I can reply or ‘re-tweet’ it (essentially send it to all my followers).

Now, the answers to all the big questions are in that text above. The biggest question of all must be ‘how does this help me?’ and now I’ll provide the answer, it’s a humdinger.

Let’s say you are an accountant. You have 1000 followers on twitter and mostly you’ve been talking about the weather, the type of beer you like and the odd nugget of information about some odd accounts thing you do. But then you happen across something really interesting – you have some knowledge that will save people about 10% off their tax bill. You nonchalantly post this tidbit of information and suddenly people take notice. They also want to save the 10%.

One of your followers has 2000 followers of his own and he posts your information thinking it will be interesting to a lot more people. He’s right, suddenly they’re following you too. Your message has now reached up to 3000 people. What if some of those re-posted your information?

All well and good and you might get some extra followers but what you’re now doing is ‘networking’ and some of those followers will get in touch directly to say “can you save me that amount?” and you’ve got a customer.

So don’t dismiss Twitter, it is far more powerful than many people imagine and it’s really going to change the way we do business.

We often successfully use social networking sites and blogs to maintain contact with our family and friends, but they are also great methods of communicating with customers. Social websites that host mini-blogs, such as Twitter, provide special ways to promote your company. Following are some tips for improving sales with Twitter.

1. Combine your personal lifestyle with your professional lifestyle. With Twitter, you can post little personal tidbits or business details on a blog (140 individuals letters or digits per instance). Therefore, these small comments need to contain a lot of interesting words to keep your consumers interested enough to look at your blog again. Your Twitter blog should include some personal information and events, to keep readers entertained. So it is ok for the blog to focus on your selling, but pop in a bit as regards to Timmy’s ballgame and partner’s favourite take-out. You could post a fantastic discount code or link a photo of your cute puppy with your Twitter blog. Letting your clients have a peek into your personal life can create friendships from business relationships. If you want to promote your business, you’d have more chances if you let people know about your personal life.

2. You may want to link your Twitter blog up to your business webpage. Good marketing includes thinking of ways to get more traffic to your website. Think about linking your Twitter page to it. Landing a customer on your doorstep might very well be a result of one of your ‘tweets’.

3. Publicize your Twitter and you’ll get more traffic. There are many other ways that you can utilize your Twitter blog to market your new business, these all rely on increasing the traffic to your blog. You should be sure to link your Twitter blog not only to your own website, but to several other sites as well. Put a link to your Twitter account on internet business directories so people that are looking for your type of business will find it. Post yourself on other companies’ newsletters as well. Maybe you should include the link on the next pamphlet you post throughout your community. The best way to have many visitors to your Twitter blog is to put the link in all the places you think it might attract people.

4. Your Twitter account should be updated regularly. It’s not uncommon for individuals to enjoy reading about what is going on in other’s lives. If you want people to come back to your Twitter blog, you need to continuously introduce all the new information you may have. Go online a minimum of every second day, even if just for a matter of minutes. Whatever your posts cover–new business offers or your children’s academic success, your customers will want to know what you’re saying now. That is an example of one good way to market your business. 

Multimedia files (audio, video, pictures) are great tools to use to get people to visit your website. You can use twitter to get people to look at or listen to the multimedia files you have created. After you read this article you will know of 3 ways that you can use twitter to promote your multimedia creations.

1. You can use microblogging to promote your videos. Many people use YouTube as a way to share their video files. It’s great that you’ve create a useful video and put it up on YouTube, but how are you going to get people to actually watch the video? Well it’s pretty simple. Just get in the habit of posting a tweet to your followers every time you post a new video to your YouTube channel. You can do the same thing if you use sites other than YouTube to host your video. Another strategy would be to tell your twitter followers about the video before you create the video. This creates anticipation in the minds of your twitter followers. They’ll be looking forward to your video and be more likely to watch the video.

2. Got a podcast? Great! After you’ve taken the time to create useful content, you want people to actually listen to your podcast, right? A great way to that is to just post a tweet to your followers when you’re about to record the podcast and then another tweet when the podcast is ready for them to download it. Another way to get traffic to your podcast is to interview someone that is really popular on twitter. Once you’ve interviewed this person do the same thing you do with your other podcast episodes. Let everyone know it’s available!

3. Got photos? Use twitpic! Twitpic is an awesome way to share your photos with your twitter posse. If your twitter friend is in the picture be sure to tag them in the picture. This way they’ll be sure to look at the picture. They might even retweet it for their followers to see!

Using audio and video is an excellent way to get people to join your list or visit your website. You do want to be sure to post some personal information when you’re networking so people won’t label you a spammer.